European Union and the cryptocurrency regulations

As anticipated in the previous article, the behavior towards the adoption of bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies varies between countries.

Generally, there is no country that has regulated the Bitcoin’s adoption, rather in some extreme cases, such as China, where we remember reigns a single communist party, the government has shut down the digital currencies exchange platforms and has banned the issue of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings).

In reality, cryptocurrencies market is not yet so large that it can destabilize the traditional financial market of each country, but it seems that for many governments the “issue of regulation of cryptocurrencies” is not purely financial, indeed regulation it is the solution to a real threat to sovereignty.

In fact, in Europe, France and Germany’s finance ministers have agreed to initiate a common repression on the cryptocurrency markets. — Expressions like “cryptocurrency bans is inevitable” declared by Macron and Merkel are generating a collective discontent towards bitcoin, while other EU governments continue to reject the boom about it.

One of the keys to sovereignty is “controlling the currency and taxes”. Cryptocurrency, interfering with both with a decentralized regime, is a real threat to sovereignty, so it is inevitable a response from governments that will see more “non-control” than technological evolution.

It’s not surprising, in fact, that European Union has previously proposed to treat cryptocurrency market as a security threat linked to money laundering and terrorists. — French Finance MinisterBruno Le Maire, said that France and Germany will present joint proposals to regulate bitcoin cryptocurrency at the next G20 summit.

Mario Draghi (President of the European Central Bank)

President of the European Central BankMario Draghi, has instead issued statements on cryptocurrencies as follows:

“The ECB does not have the power to prohibit or regulate Bitcoin. In the ECB, we are following this evolution, but this technology is not yet mature to be considered in the ECB’s monetary policies or as a payment system”.

Let’s say that words like “technology” and “evolution” suggest an opening towards Blockchain and therefore the whole encrypted world. — In the past, Draghi had critically accepted the Estonian decision to launch its own national cryptocurrency called “estcoin”, stating that “no member state can introduce its own currency”, as the only currency of the countries belonging to the european monetary union it is precisely the Euro.